Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
April 14, 2025
Jeremy R Tuck, Lee E. Dunlap, Yara A Khatib et al.
32 citations
Decreased dendritic spine density in the cortex is a key pathological feature of neuropsychiatric diseases including depression, addiction, and schizophrenia (SCZ). Psychedelics possess a remarkable ability to promote cortical neuron growth and increase spine density; however, these compounds are contraindicated for patients with SCZ or a family history of psychosis. Here, we report the...
ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
April 10, 2025
Robert B. Kargbo
Recent advancements in psychedelic therapeutics, tryptamine derivatives, neuroplastic modulators, and AI-powered machine-learning platforms mark a new frontier in precision medicine. These innovations address critical challenges in neurological and psychiatric disorders, chronic pain management, and computational accessibility. By harnessing the principles of receptor modulation, targeted...
ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
April 10, 2025
Robert B. Kargbo
Psychedelics and AI modulate cognitive frameworks, disrupt rigid thought patterns, and enhance neuroplasticity, offering therapeutic potential for depression, PTSD, and addiction. Relaxing neural filters reveal altered states of consciousness, challenging perceptions of reality. This Viewpoint explores their neurobiological mechanisms and AI's role in augmenting psychiatric treatments.
Frontiers in Psychiatry
April 8, 2025
Jennifer L. Jones
5 citations
Psychiatric disorders are marked by habitual patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, and many mental health disorders are resistant to standard treatments (1)(2)(3)(4). For example, symptoms of major depressive disorder include ruminative negative thoughts, pervasive sadness, and lack of goaldirected behavior (5)(6)(7). Similarly, many anxiety and trauma-related disorders are characterized...
Cureus
April 1, 2025
Zach Papadopoulos
1 citation
Depression is a common yet potentially debilitating mood disorder with complex neurobiological underpinnings, including deficiencies in monoaminergic and glutamatergic signaling, overactivity of the lateral habenula, and dysregulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) signaling. Ketamine has emerged as a mechanistically novel, effective, and rapidly acting antidepressant. Ketamine's...
The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
March 29, 2025
Michal Lazar, Michal Brownstien, Alexander Botvinnik et al.
3 citations
Abstract Background SAPAP3-knockout (SAPAP3-KO) mice develop excessive self-grooming behavior at 4-6 months of age, serving as a model for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Given that anxiety often precedes OCD diagnosis in humans, this study investigated whether juvenile SAPAP3-KO mice exhibit anxiety-like behaviors before developing the self-grooming phenotype, and whether such behaviors...
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
March 27, 2025
Blerida Banushi, Jemma Collova, Helen Milroy
19 citations
Trauma can impact individuals within a generation (intragenerational) and future generations (transgenerational) through a complex interplay of biological and environmental factors. This review explores the epigenetic mechanisms that have been correlated with the effects of trauma across generations, including DNA methylation, histone modifications, and non-coding RNAs. These mechanisms can...
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
March 20, 2025
Zhen Xuen Brandon Low, Shin Jie Yong, Hayam A Alrasheed et al.
In our ongoing battle against the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a major challenge is the enduring symptoms that continue after acute infection. Also known as Long COVID, post-COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) often comes with debilitating symptoms like fatigue, disordered sleep, olfactory dysfunction, and cognitive issues ("brain fog"). Currently, there are no approved treatments for PCS. Recent...
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
March 20, 2025
Steven A. Barker
3 citations
Renewed interest in the clinical use of psychedelic drugs acknowledges their therapeutic effectiveness. It has also provided a changing frame of reference for older psychedelic drug study data, especially regarding concentrations of N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) reported in rodent brains and recent discoveries in DMT receptor interactions in rat brain neurons and select brain areas. The mode of...
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
March 20, 2025
Sabrine Bilel, Cristina Miliano, Giorgia Corli et al.
3 citations
25I-NBOMe (4-Iodo-2,5-dimethoxy-N-(2-methoxybenzyl) phenethylamine) is a synthetic psychedelic compound abused for its ambiguous legal state as a counterfeit lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). 25I-NBOMe acts as a selective agonist of 5HT2A receptors leading to hallucinations, intoxications, and fatalities. Here, we assessed the rewarding properties of 25I-NBOMe and its behavioral and neurotoxic...
Molecular Brain
March 18, 2025
Ram Harari, Dmitriy Getselter, Evan Elliott
2 citations
Psilocybin, a psychedelic compound found in specific hallucinogenic mushrooms, is known to induce changes in visual perception and experience in humans. However, there is little knowledge of the molecular mechanisms through which psilocybin affects vision-associated regions in the brain, such as the visual cortex. The current study determined both psilocybin-induced and experience-dependent...
Journal of Clinical Medicine
March 3, 2025
Evgenia Gkintoni, Stephanos P. Vassilopoulos, Georgios Nikolaou
64 citations
Background/Objectives: This systematic review outlines the neurocognitive outcomes and mechanisms of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) that influence subjective well-being. MBCT is a clinical intervention that integrates cognitive therapy with mindfulness practices to prevent depression relapses and improve mental health. Methods: The review focuses on the effects of MBCT on brain...
Journal of Mood and Anxiety Disorders
March 1, 2025
Diane Joss, Michael Datko, Charisma I. Washington et al.
5 citations
Self-judgment is a trans-diagnostic symptom among various psychological disorders, therefore can be a therapeutic target for many common psychiatric conditions. Self-judgment often arises among those who experienced childhood maltreatment, which increases the risk for developing comorbid psychiatric disorders that are resistant to traditional pharmacological and psychological interventions....
Brain and Behavior
March 1, 2025
Kiren Bashir, Stephen B. Edstrom, Sara J. Barlow et al.
4 citations
Introduction: Loving-kindness meditation (LKM), a meditation type focused on nurturing love and compassion for oneself and others, has been shown to provide mental health benefits, and LKM interventions are being investigated for mental disorders. The benefits of long-term practice, such as increased self-compassion, greater cognitive and affective empathy, and prosocial behavior, are proposed...
Der Nervenarzt
March 1, 2025
Moritz Spangemacher, Jonathan R Reinwald, Hana Adolphi et al.
Novel antidepressive substances are challenging the explanations for the mechanisms of action of traditional psychopharmacology. What could be the shared effects of various antidepressants and in this context what role do extrapharmacological factors, such as the body and environment, play? The available literature on clinical and preclinical data for assumed combined active factors of...
medRxiv Preprint Server
February 25, 2025
J Cohen, AC Reichelt, R Zamyadi et al.
1 citation
preprint
This detailed case report explores the application of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) in the treatment of a male patient in their late 30’s with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and depressive symptoms. The N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist ketamine represents a significant breakthrough in the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders due to its rapid and robust...
Pharmacological Research
February 1, 2025
Michaela Dvorakova, Ken Mackie, Alex Straiker
2 citations
Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the chief psychoactive ingredient of cannabis, acts in the brain primarily via cannabinoid CB1 receptors. These receptors are implicated in several forms of synaptic plasticity - depolarization-induced suppression of excitation (DSE), metabotropic suppression of excitation (MSE), long term depression (LTD) and activation-dependent desensitization. Cultured...
Biological Psychiatry
February 1, 2025
Cassiano Ricardo Alves Faria Diniz, Ana Paula Crestani, Plinio Cabrera Casarotto et al.
15 citations
Diverse antidepressants were recently described to bind to TrkB (tyrosine kinase B) and drive a positive allosteric modulation of endogenous BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor). Although neurotrophins such as BDNF can bind to p75NTR (p75 neurotrophin receptor), their precursors are the high-affinity p75NTR ligands. While part of an unrelated receptor family capable of inducing completely...
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
February 1, 2025
Clara Liao, Alisha N Dua, Cassandra Wojtasiewicz et al.
60 citations
A feature in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD), a mood disorder, is the impairment of excitatory synapses in the prefrontal cortex. Intriguingly, different types of treatment with fairly rapid antidepressant effects (within days or a few weeks), such as ketamine, electroconvulsive therapy and non-invasive neurostimulation, seem to converge on enhancement of neural...
Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior
February 1, 2025
Erin A Clark, Lien Wang, Taleen Hanania et al.
5 citations
Ketamine is noted for its rapid onset antidepressant response and effectiveness in patients with treatment resistant depression. While most research has focused on glutamatergic mechanisms, recent studies show that antidepressant-like effects in rodents are dependent upon the serotonergic (5-HT) system and suggest a potential contribution of the 5-HT1B receptor. In this study we utilized...